Retarding the spoilage of perishable foods, and significantly extending the useful life of perishable food items such as fruits and vegetable would be of major interest for the fruits and vegetable markets.
Presently, controlling the humidity and temperature for storage of items such as fruits and vegetables is employed to extend useful life by retarding spoilage and reducing their tendencies for drying out. However, providing this means for retarding spoilage and extending useful life for fruits and vegetables adds considerably to the market prices as a result of the costs of the facilities and equipment required for storing these items in a controlled environment. After removing the stored fruits and vegetables to the market place for displaying and selling there is a need to further retard spoilage and extending useful life of these items.
The shelf life of certain food items has been extended experimentally by exposing to radiation; however, the usefulness of this type treatment for such items as fruits and vegetables would appear to be limited and generally, not practical at present market prices.
The need for a treatment procedure for retarding the spoilage of perishable foods items and significantly extending the useful life thereof is readily recognized. Such a treatment procedure that could also be useful in conjunction with presently used storage methods in a controlled environment and also when the perishable food items are removed from the controlled environment to the market place would be attractive, particularly if the treatment procedure provided edible coatings to function as excellent barriers for preventing the perishable food items from reacting with atmospheric oxygen or carbon dioxide. The edible coating should be permeable to water which precludes their drying out due to dehydration.